Stories for the Storm
by penguinsskrp
Summary: This story is about the penguins and how they meet or um... got Private, it starts of with Marlene, the Otter, but quickly turns into Kowalski's way of how they meet private. It's funny and sweet, hope you enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

0700 hours or 7:00 A.M., Marlene, the Otter, was slowly waking up to the sun's bright light as it peaked through her habitat, but this was nothing out of the ordinary. Every day she woke to sun's early light and every day she would get out of bed eat something for breakfast then wait a few minutes before taking a nice cool swim in her little pond. Yet today she just felt like laying there, besides it was Sunday and the zoo was closed, why get up and get ready for guest when none where coming. So she did, she laid on her bed staring at her ceiling, day dreaming, but as she did, sleep slowly crept into her brain, making her vision of her ceiling go fuzzy and then dark, sleep had won. She didn't really care for the battle anyway, she was tired and sleepy. The day before she had gone with the penguins on one of their stake outs and she couldn't possible see how anyone or anything could stay up all night staring at one thing the whole time, of course nothing happened while she was there. She had thought it might have been exiting, that's why she tagged along but, if she were to have known, she would have never even asked, she fell asleep thinking of the stake out. She tried to concentrate on what her self-consensus had remembered from the stake out. Pictures formed as she thought, slowly four black and white figures appeared. One tall, one short, one sort of short and one really short, she looked at them. Kowalski, obviously the tall one, was staring at his note pad, Skipper, the short one, was looking at her, Rico, the sort of short one, looked a bit devise as he stared at nothing but thin air, and Private, the really short one, was looking at her to, he smiled and waved as soon as he noticed her. She smiled and waved back, Private looked as if he was going to say something, but before he could Kowalski spoke up.

"Marlene?" asked Kowalski, surprised to see the Otter; he had not noticed her walking up.

"Hay Kowalski!" she answered back, letting a hint of excitement escape her voice.

"Hello" he said acknowledging her greeting.

"Hi Marlene!" both Private and Rico said, (well in Rico's own way of saying it).

She waited for Skipper to greet her to, but no voice came. She looked at him when it took her by surprise that Skipper looked in a horrible mode; his eyes directly locked one Private.

"Uh Skipper?" she said "are you ok?"

Private by now had looked at Marlene and seen her looking directly at skipper, in which instinctively he looked at Skipper. Marlene, herd a gulp come from Private. She quickly turned her attention to Private, who was no longer smiling, a look mixed with sadness and fright planted on his face, as he coward down. Marlene wasn't sure what to do, but there was one thing she knew for sure and that was that this is defiantly not what happened during the stake out .just then a loud noise sounded.

"What the …?" said Marlene, just then another loud noise sounded, this time causing the image of the penguins to fade then come back. Then all of a sudden the noise came again, this time the picture of the penguins faded, the image did not come back.

"Ahh!" yelled Marlene as she immediately sat up right in her bed, the loud noise still ringing in her ears.


	2. Evacuation!

Boom!!

Marlene grabbed her ears, wishing that the noise would just go away. When it dawned to her on what was really happing. She slowly let go of her ears and hopped off her bed. She wasn't really sure how long she slept, but as she got closer to the cave entrance she had a pretty good idea of how long. A small droplet gently hit her forehead as she stepped outside; a cool breeze hugged her fur. She raised her head up to the sky as more small droplets hit her fur, it was raining!! She couldn't believe how silly and wrong she was, how could she mistake thunder for a murders threat. Then again she was dreaming and I guess anything is possible in a dream. Suddenly she heard a voice, not animals but human's although this human could possibly be the missing link.

"Alice?"Marlene said out loud "What's she doing here?"

Of cores, Alice, would come to work even if there was no work to be done, since it was Sunday, but why? Marlene took a few seconds to question how long she had slept, when she heard Alice complaining. Alice, by now, was standing by the lemur habitat, holding a cage. She started to say how she couldn't believe, she, out of all the zookeepers, had to come to work, on a Sunday, in pouring down rain. Marlene rolled her eyes, but quickly turned he attention back when Alice reached down at something brown and gray, wearing a funny looking hat on its head.

"Julian?" Marlene had a confused expression planted on her face.

Alice quickly and roughly, tossed Julian in, then Maurice, and finally Mort. Alice was still complaining as the turned around and hopped in her little zoo car, the cage sitting on the seat next to her. Marlene couldn't see the lemur's facile expressions, but she had a bad felling in her stomach. The rain was pouring down harder now, Marlene looked around, but the rain made it hard to see. She could make out a few shapes and noticed that the lemurs weren't the only ones who were gone or leaving. Alice seemed to be taking all the small animals out of the zoo that couldn't swim, which included the lemurs. Marlene had seen this only once before at her old zoo when the zoo evacuated most of the animals that couldn't swim in case of a flood. Marlene shuddered the thought of flood just didn't sound right, even if she could swim.


	3. Explaining?

Marlene's gaze quickly went from the lemur's habitat to the penguin's habitat. For a second she thought of her dream, but it quickly vanished as another thunder bolt rumbled the sky. Marlene started to climb the wall of her habitat; she didn't like knowing that a crazed, or even flooding, storm was coming; more or less it could have already started. She felt that she needed to "check up on them", just to make sure that everything was fine. Marlene knew deep down she was still unsure about her dream and real life and if Skipper was actually made at Private she was going to be there, the thought of Skipper pummeling Private made her even more upset. So to as to get rid of it she started to run to the penguin's habitat, rather than walking. She reached the fence to their habitat and quickly jumped over it, she dove head first into the water that surrounded the penguins little island. She hopped up onto it and looked around, the penguins weren't there. She thought that they were probable in side in there so called "HQ". She walked over to the food bowl, she knew where it lead. Yet Marlene, no matter how many times she had come over, had never used the secret whole under their food bowl. She didn't feel like taking the other way, it was too long, so as she reached down to push the food bowl aside, a loud siren sounded. In less than 5 seconds four black and white figures, burst through the opening, from the secret whole, giving Marlene barely any time to move out of the way. The four figures took a fighting stance while there flippers sliced through the air. Marlene stepped back in surprise. Each penguin had a different expression planted on their faces, yet all of the expression seemed to say "who is it, were under attack, and I'm ready!" all mashed up into one. Marlene blinked in utter silence, as Skipper looked right past her, as did the others, as if she was no less a threat than the stale fish in the food bowl. Skipper looked all around for a sign of an enemy or threat, it was safe.

"Coast is clear boys" Sipper informed them as he turned his attention to Marlene, who by now was once again having second thoughts about coming. Kowalski seemed to have relaxed as he realized that it was "only" Marlene. Private seemed his usual cheery self, Marlene let a sigh of relief escape her. Rico still seemed to be alert but quickly waved at Marlene. Skipper on the other hand, looked confused.

"Marlene? What are you doing here?"He asked

"What? I can't stop by to see my friends?" She said in a high pitched voice, or her "charming voice"

"Well, I guess _you _can stop by-" Answered Skipper, a little suspicious, he could detect her "charming voice" which was only used when she was lying or wanted something.

"Great!" she said, cutting Skipper off.

"Right" he said lifting an eye brow, (if penguins even have eye brows)

Marlene had already guessed he had detected her voice, so she gave in, a little known fact; Marlene was never very keen on lying, especially to friends.

She sighed "Oh all right, I'm not entirely here for a visit, I got worried about the storm and then I saw Alice carrying the lemurs away and thought that there might be a flood coming soon with all this rain, so I came to check up on you guys just in case!" Marlene finished almost out of breath.

It took awhile for Skipper to process everything he heard, but before he could respond, Private jumped in.

"That's really nice of you Marlene!" He said in his cute British accent.

"Yack, yack!" Agreed Rico. Skipper, for once, was actually glad that Private cut in, he wasn't really very good with the whole sensitive guy thing. Marlene was surprised that Skipper didn't say anything to Private for cutting in, not even a look of "what did I say". Marlene was starting to think her dream was making her paranoid, besides Skipper has never actually done anything to hurt Private or his team, they were his friends. Marlene caught Kowalski's eyes.

"Uh, flood?" he asked

"Yeah, there taking all of the animals that can't swim out of the zoo!" Marlene replied, a little bit of concern escaping her voice. None, of the penguins looked concerned though, not even Private.

"Uh, guys didn't you hear what I just said, flood, animals evacuating, hello!"Marlene by now was desperately trying to make them understand, but all they did was stare and look at her. Finally Skipper spoke up.

"Your point?" he answered plainly. Marlene frowned, what would it take for them to understand?

She sighed "My point is Skipper, is that you guys need to be ready, and prepared in case of a flood!"

Skipper smiled at this, "Marlene we are an elite team, strike force, nothing like a little flood is going to surprise us."

"So you have what you need for the flood?" She asked

Skipper was the one frowning now, "Yes, and weren't you listening?"

"Yea, just as much as you all were about my warning!"

Skipper was surprised as to how quickly Marlene had gone from nice to when the day Ronda (a walrus) had showed up; obviously he had said something to hurt her.

"Uh a sorry" he said and he meant it, Skipper was all for hurting someone physically, but not emotionally.

"It's ok" Marlene was surprised to see how quickly Skipper had realized what he had done.

Boom!

Marlene jumped; it was raining, almost haling. Private noticed Marlene jump and felt bad that she had to walk all by herself, alone, in a storm like this, until an idea popped in his head, ( or like Julian's way of saying, "I think my brain is hatching an idea, yes it is defiantly an idea and I have it hahah!")


	4. What?

"Marlene!" Private blurted out, he was exploding with excitement, unable to contain it any longer. He had been waiting patiently for his leader and Marlene to finish their conversation, not that it really went anywhere, but it was still the polite thing to do until . . .

All the penguins and Marlene all turned to face him at once. Skipper, who was the first one to respond to Privates outburst, quickly put a face of concern on.

"What is it Private?" Skipper asked calmly, though you couldn't say the same for his expression.

"I have a great idea Skipper!" Private, by now, was joyfully hopping up and down clapping his flippers together, like he usually did whenever something exiting was about to happen. Skipper raised an eye brow again.

"What kind of idea Private?" Skipper asked

"The best kind of one Skipper!" Private answered turning to Marlene, but before Skipper had any idea of what Private was saying, Private spoke again.

"Marlene should stay with us!" he buttered out again.

"What!" Went Skipper.

"Marlene!" Went Kowalski.

"Buttons!" Went Rico.

"Me!" Went Marlene.


	5. Thanks Kowalski

Everyone was staring at Private, as a bolt of lightning exploded through the sky.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Private, why would Marlene stay with us?" Skipper asked

"Because of the flood." He answered

"Private, Marlene can take care of herself;" Skipper glanced at her "can't you?"

But before she could respond another voice cut in, this time form Kowalski.

"Um, acutely Skipper, are habitat would be a lot safer from a flood, than Marlene's." He said this as he pulled out his note pad and flipped through it.

"So does that mean Marlene can stay then?" asked Private

"Uh?" Skipper said.

"Please Skipper!" Private was practically begging now.

"Oh, all right" Skipper said, finally giving in. Then he turned to Kowalski and lowered his voice "Thanks, Kowalski" he said sarcastically.

"You're welcome." He said happily, but as he suddenly understood what Skipper had meant, he frowned.

"Woo, woo, woo, wait just a second there guys, don't I get a say in this?" Marlene said crossing her arms and frowning.

"No" Skipper said calmly

"You don't have to stay if you don't want to." Private said disappointed

"But it would be a whole lot safer if you did" Kowalski added, half heartedly.

"Thanks guys, but really I'll be fine, Skipper's right I can take care of myself, besides I came to see if you guys were ok, not me." She said smiling.

"Very well, we'll be here when you change your mind" Skipper said.

Marlene frowned again, "When I _do_ change my mind?"

"Yea, when you change your mind we'll be here" He said this in a _matter of fact tone_, Marlene rolled her eyes, luckily Skipper didn't see it. "Alright boys let's go back inside, the weather is getting pretty nasty out here." He said as he looked up into the sky, the rain had turned into hail, and thunder drowned out the noise of the city.

"Bye Marlene" said Private, and Rico waved good bye. And with that, all four of them quickly jumped back into their HP, an anonymous flipper closing the hatch and shoving the fish bowl back into place.

Marlene sighed, she was soaking wet, cold, and a bit annoyed, plus the hail didn't help at all. All she had come to do was to make sure that they were ok instead she had gotten a huge migraine, and what was up with Skipper; he had acted as if he hadn't even wanted her around. Maybe it had just been her dream again, making her think like this. But then again something just didn't feel right, and it wasn't because of her dream.


End file.
